Have you ever wondered if a book cover design portrays the message of the contents? More importantly, does YOUR book cover capture the essence of your manuscript? Does your cover design speak to the target market you’re trying to reach? Is it attractive, eye-catching or compelling enough for a prospective buyer to take a closer look? Do you know what to look for when critiquing a cover design? Kerrie Lian, the senior designer on my team recently created the cover of the first book in a series for a new client, Tom Matt. Tom asked Kerrie if she liked what she created….
Several of our clients and team members won book awards at the 2012 Colorado Independent Publishers Association EVVY Book Awards banquet held on May 17th. Julia Hubbel of Principled Networking won 3 awards. Her first book Wordfood won 1st place in the Business/Career category and 2nd place in the Self -Help category. Julia’s second book, Tackling the Titans won a merit award in the Business/Career career category. Team members Kerrie Lian designed the cover and interior of both books and Barbara Munson edited both books. Shown below are the covers of both books. Our clients Mary Anne Harvey and Randy Chapman, Esq. of The…
So you’ve finished writing your manuscript. You’ve hired an editor to edit your book and a designer to create the cover and lay out your interior. Great. Now you’re ready to print your book, so you want to compare self-published book printing options. There are two ways to have your book printed. Your choices are to have it printed conventionally or print on demand (POD). I’ll explain the differences and provide a price chart for two hypothetical books. But, before you can make your printing choice, you need to decide if you want someone to handle the printing process for you,…
Designing a children’s book was a treat for my team! As a team leader serving the publishing community, I have the privilege of helping authors publish their books and launch their websites. Every client is so passionate about his or her book, product or service, it’s fun to live vicariously through their work for a few months. Occasionally a client brings a project that seems to leap heads and shoulders above the rest in regard to the intriguing subject matter, quality of content, scope of work, artistic challenge and affect it has on our community. One such project was Alphabet Denver,…
Are you stumped by new acronyms that have suddenly popped up and become part of the current lexicon in the publishing, marketing or advertising arenas? I’ve notice new acronyms are born whenever there is a new leap in technology, such as the emerging field of ebook publishing. Here are definitions of some and newly coined and common acronyms used in self-publishing, printing and graphic design. AI — Adobe Illustrator A vector-based graphic file format developed by Adobe. BMP — Bitmap A raster-based file format. CMYK— Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black A four-ink color system used by printers to print full color images. This is…
As an author and independent publisher I’m always looking for ways to leverage my work and the material in my printed book, Turn Eye Appeal into Buy Appeal. Turning my intellectual property into various products is a pretty obvious solution. The emerging popularity of Kindle, iPad and Nook ereaders convinced me now was the time to convert a printed book into an ebook. Many Ways to Sell and Distribute eBooks I discovered there are several routes I could take to sell and distribute my ebooks, depending on how much time and effort I wanted to put into the distribution process. I…
My client Mike Gannon took home 3rd Place in the Inspirational and Memoir categories for his book If These Ears Could Sing at the 2011 Colorado Independent Publishers Association CIPA EVVY Book Awards banquet last night. Melanie Mulhall edited the book, Kerrie Lian designed the interior and I designed the cover. Mike Gannon and Jeri Costa flew in from Reston, Virginia to attend the banquet last night. We had a fabulous time supporting and cheering on Mike as well as Melanie, who took home a 1st Place Editing Tech Award for Called: Women Hear the Voice of the Divine by Gretchen…
Are you publishing your first book? Congratulations! Would you like a road map to show you the book production process and outline each step to go from manuscript to a professional, printed book or ebook listed on Amazon? Over the years of designing books for independent publishers I’ve recognized first-time publishers could use a quick reference guide on time frames, tasks they are responsible for, and how to work with contractors such as editors, designers and printers. I created an easy-to-follow 10-page guide with checklists of action items, standard time frames, an overview of the design process, and where to obtain important items (such as ISBN…
A book media kit can be a paper folder or a page on your website with the essential information and marketing materials about your book. The media kit should provide the media with all the information they need to write a story, or do an audio or video interview with the author. For a hard copy media kit you can gather the following items and arrange them in a classy folder (a solid color in gloss is good). Paste a color postcard of your book cover on the front of the folder. For an online media kit, add a page…